First up, science journalist Julia Rosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about a growing fleet of radar satellites that will soon be able to detect minute rises and drops of Earth’s surface—from a gently deflating volcano to a water-swollen field—on a daily basis.
Sarah also talks with Hui Cao, a professor of applied physics at Yale University, about a new way to generate enormous streams of random numbers faster than ever before, using a tiny laser that can fit on a computer chip.
The surprising structure of protons, and a method for growing small intestines for transplantation.
In this episode:
00:45 Probing the proton’s interior
Although studied for decades, the internal structure of the proton is still throwing up surprises for physicists. This week, a team of researchers report an unexpected imbalance in the antimatter particles that make up the proton.
Research Article: Dove et al.
News and Views: Antimatter in the proton is more down than up
07:08 Research Highlights
How an inactive gene may help keep off the chill, and Cuba’s isolation may have prevented invasive species taking root on the island.
Research Highlight: Impervious to cold? A gene helps people to ward off the chills
Research Highlight: Marauding plants steer clear of a communist-ruled island
09:48 A new way to grow a small intestine
Short Bowel Syndrome is an often fatal condition that results from the removal of the small intestine. Treatment options are limited to transplantation, but donor intestines are hard to come by and can be rejected by the body. Now researchers may have developed a method to grow a replacement small intestine using stem cells and a small section of colon.
Research Article: Sugimoto et al.
15:50 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, the landing of Perseverance on Mars, and the researchers speaking with lucid dreamers.
Nature News: Mars video reveals Perseverance rover’s daring touchdown
Nature News: Touch down! NASA’s Mars landing sparks new era of exploration
Science Staff Writer Jon Cohen joins host Sarah Crespi to take on some of big questions about the COVID-19 vaccines, such as: Do they stop transmission? Will we need boosters? When will life get back to “normal.”
Sarah also talks with Anders Johansen, professor of planetary sciences and planet formation at the University of Copenhagen, about his Science Advances paper on a new theory for the formation of rocky planets in our Solar System. Instead of emerging out of ever-larger collisions of protoplanets, the new idea is that terrestrial planets like Earth and Mars formed from the buildup of many small pebbles.
Researchers sequence the oldest DNA ever recovered, and the people bringing art and science together.
In this episode:
00:46 Million-year-old mammoth DNA
This week, researchers have smashed a long-standing record by sequencing a genome that’s over a million years old. They achieved this feat by extracting DNA from permafrost-preserved mammoth teeth, using it to build-up a more detailed family tree for these ancient animals.
Research Article: van der Valk et al.
News: Million-year-old mammoth genomes shatter record for oldest ancient DNA
News and Views: Million-year-old DNA provides a glimpse of mammoth evolution
10:00 Research Highlights
A spacecraft catches a rare glimpse of a rock smashing into Jupiter, and the perilous state of sawfish populations.
Research Highlight: Robotic eyes spy the flash of a meteor on Jupiter
Research Highlight: Humans push a hulking fish with a chainsaw nose towards oblivion
12:18 Putting art into science (and science into art)
Art and science are sometimes considered disparate, but when brought together the results can be greater than the sum of their parts. This week we hear from an artist and a scientist on the benefits they found when crossing the divide.
Career Feature: How to shape a productive scientist–artist collaboration
Career Feature: How the arts can help you to craft a successful research career
Where I work: ‘All my art is curiosity-driven’: the garden studio where art and physics collide
21:43 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, a neanderthal gene makes brain-like organoids bumpy, and uncovering the original location of Stonehenge’s stone circle.
Science journalist Rachel Cernansky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about progress on Africa’s Great Green Wall project and the important difference between planting and growing a tree.
Sarah also talks with Václav Kuna, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, about using loud and long songs from fin whales to image structures under the ocean floor.
This week we’re dedicating the whole show to the 20th anniversary of the publication of the human genome. Today, about 30 million people have had their genomes sequenced. This remarkable progress has brought with it issues of data sharing, privacy, and inequality.
Host Sarah Crespi spoke with a number of researchers about the state of genome science, starting with Yaniv Erlich, from the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science and CEO of Eleven Biotherapeutics, who talks about privacy in the age of easily obtainable genomes. Next up Charles Rotimi, director of the Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health at the National Human Genome Research Institute, discusses diversity—or lack thereof—in the field and what it means for the kinds of research that happens. Finally, Dorothy Roberts, professor in the departments of Africana studies and sociology and the law school at the University of Pennsylvania, talks about the seemingly never-ending project of disentangling race and genomes.
Exploring the properties of a vanishingly-rare man-made element, and the AI that generates new mathematical conjectures.
In this episode:
01:04 Einsteinium’s secrets
Einsteinium is an incredibly scarce, man-made element that decays so quickly that researchers don’t know much about it. Now, using state-of-the-art technology, a team has examined how it interacts with other atoms, which they hope will shed new light on einsteinium and its neighbours on the periodic table.
Research Article: Carter et al.
06:28 Research Highlights
The mysterious appearance of three ozone-depleting chemicals in Earth’s atmosphere, and how ride-sharing services have failed to reduce traffic jams.
Research Highlight: Mystery on high: an ozone-destroying chemical appears in the air
Research Highlight: Uber and Lyft drive US gridlock — but not cuts in car ownership
8:38 The computer that comes up with new mathematical formulas
A team of researchers have developed artificial-intelligence algorithms that can generate new formulas for calculating the digits of key mathematical numbers like pi. Although crucial, many of these numbers remain mysterious, so it is hoped that this system will open up new avenues of questioning for mathematicians.
Research Article: Raayoni et al.
14:48 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, a new theory to explain a sixty-year-old mystery surrounding the icy deaths of a group of Russian students, and the continued controversy about the chances of life on Venus.
Video: Explaining the icy mystery of the Dyatlov Pass deaths
On its first day, the new Biden administration announced plans to recalculate the social cost of carbon—a way of estimating the economic toll of greenhouse gases. Staff Writer Paul Voosen and host Sarah Crespi discuss why this value is so important and how it will be determined.
Next up, Alison Barker, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, talks with Sarah about the sounds of naked mole-rats. You may already know naked mole-rats are pain and cancer resistant—but did you know these eusocial mammals make little chirps to identify themselves as colony members? Can these learned local dialects make naked mole-rats a new research model for language learning?
A neuroprosthetic device restores blood-pressure control after spinal-cord injury, and identifying the neurons that help us understand others’ beliefs.
In this episode:
00:47 A neuroprosthetic restores the body’s baroreflex
A common problem for people who have experienced spinal-cord injury is the inability to maintain their blood pressure, which can have serious, long-term health consequences. Now, however, researchers have developed a device that may restore this ability, by stimulating the neural circuits involved in the so-called baroreflex.
Research Article: Squair et al.
News and Views: Neuroprosthetic device maintains blood pressure after spinal cord injury
08:27 Research Highlights
How gesticulating changes the way that speech is perceived, and a new theory of how Saturn got its tilt.
Research Highlight: Hands speak: how casual gestures shape what we hear
Research Highlight: The moon that made Saturn a pushover
10:58 A neuronal map of understanding others
Humans are very good at understanding that other people have thoughts, feelings and beliefs that are different to our own. But the neuronal underpinnings of this ability have been hard to unpick. Now, researchers have identified a subset of neurons that they think gives us this ability.
Research Article: Jamali et al.
18:04 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, the science of why cats love catnip, and the struggle to identify what the mysterious celestial object StDr 56 actually is.
Science: Why cats are crazy for catnip
Syfy Wire: So what the heck is StDr 56?
Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a controversial new paper that estimates how many rodents are used in research in the United States each year.
Though there is no official number, the paper suggests there might be more than 100 million rats and mice housed in research facilities in the country—doubling or even tripling some earlier estimates.
Next, Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel talks with Sarah about a new theory behind the cause of irritable bowel syndrome—that it might be a localized allergic reaction in the gut. Sarah also chats with Taline Kazandjian, a postdoctoral research associate at the Centre for Snakebite Research & Interventions in Liverpool, U.K., about how the venom from spitting cobras has evolved to cause maximum pain and why these snakes might have developed the same defense mechanism three different times.
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